Finding the right person to make a commitment to can take years, but it turned out that Grace Gelder had known her perfect partner all her life

When I told my family and friends that I was planning to marry myself, my gran, who has since passed away, said: Oh, you always think of something new, Grace.

My parents, who are very open-minded, also took it in their stride. Theyd got used to my attraction to the wild and the wacky. As long as it makes you happy, Grace, were fine with it, was their reaction.

After her divorce, Indigenous writer Melissa Lucashenko and her daughter moved from a paradise on Aboriginal land to an impoverished community in Brisbane

In 2004 a real estate agent drove me, my husband Bill, and our young daughter Ruby down a winding country road. The road was near Mullumbimby in northern New South Wales, and on either side horses and cattle grazed. The hills that surrounded this valley were cloaked in lush rainforest, home to king parrots and pademelons, and just on the other side of those hills we could hear the booming of the great Pacific Ocean on the coast at New Brighton.

It was a paradise in miniature. And for all that real estate agent knew, we were just another cashed up couple trying to make the sea change that all of Australia was dreaming of. But in truth, there was something else going on. Because this was Bundjalung jagun, this was Bundjalung country, my ancestral land, land that my grandmothers had been forced off.

The fashion duo on wandering through Soho drunk, getting fired, and using a bathroom as their shared wardrobe

She was the year below me at Saint Martins and we didnt like each other something to do with a boy who neither of us ended up dating. I thought she was a Labrador bouncy, blonde, over-enthusiastic. Neither of us graduated. A year later we met in a press room at the end of a fashion week. I asked who fancied a drink and everyone was busy, so I ended up with Luella. One wine turned into an all-night bar crawl. The next morning I was signing the lease on a new flat and couldnt afford the rent, so on Monday she moved in. Thats how we became friends.

A new app that delivers messages via the nearest human is a breath of fresh air in a virtual world

This morning I was accosted by an Italian granny on the bus. I live in London where people avoid eye contact, let alone chat. It turned out her daughter lives in my road and by the time we said goodbye shed invited me round for proper Italian coffee. Imagine if you came back tonight to find your mum had brought a stranger she met on a bus home? Arent we meant to at least Google people before letting them through the front door?

We are more removed than ever from the people we might call our community. We meet people online, banter on Twitter and we dont even know what they look like when they laugh out loud. Half of us struggle with our neighbours first names, a third of us wouldnt recognise them in the street and psychological studies show that online social networks make us lonely, sad and jealous. This is all about to change. Finally there is an app that encourages real-life interaction and not just for shagging.